Leave it to Lane Kiffin to reveal yet another new layer of controversy in the annual 'Egg Bowl' rivalry with Mississippi State.
Speaking to Marty Smith on the SEC Network while entering State's Davis Wade Stadium Friday morning, Kiffin revealed that Ole Miss's locker room was twice broken into Thanksgiving night and in the early hours of Friday morning.
"Well, you can hear these fans already out here," Kiffin said, before dropping the bombshell burglary news. "This will be a great game here today, it's a very passionate rivalry. Shoot at 10 o'clock last night, luckily the great Ken Crain, our equipment manager, put cameras, secret cameras, in our locker room so that he could watch Mississippi State break into our locker room and start stealing things.
"We reported it to Mississippi State, they said they would put security. And how about this? At 3 o'clock in the morning, they break in again and take Trinidad's jersey. So, I guess you expect nothing less from these people."
Kiffin declined to divulge anything about his future decision or what kind of timeline he was on to announce such a decision. He's mulling offers from Florida and LSU to become each program's next head coach and also has essentially a blank slate to match any offering price to renew his contract with Ole Miss, numerous sources have told FootballScoop.
"Today's about this game, 11 wins potentially for the first time in school history. That's the first time 11 wins in the entire state by any program in the regular season," Kiffin said. "A lot on the line and our guys are focused and ready to play. This noise thing you're referring to, this isn't anything new it's been going on for weeks.
"I'm looking at kickoff in an hour-and-a-half and after that, let's go watch Knox (his son) go beat Tupelo at Oxford High School.
"When you perform really well as players, as a team and assistant coaches, there's a lot of stuff that goes with that. Player awards and things like that. All it is is a compliment to their success and our players' success and assistant coaches' success in the six years we've been here."
One note: Kiffin clearly is indicating 11 regular-season wins in the regular season at the Football Bowls Subdivision level. Earlier this decade, Deion Sanders guided Jackson State to consecutive seasons of 11 and 12 wins.